Anti-lambda event. Photograph taken August 12, 1959. Bubble Chamber-802. In 1947 during a study of cosmic ray interactions, a product of a proton collision with a nucleus was found to live for much longer time than expected: 10 -10 seconds instead of the expected 10 -23 seconds. This particle was named the lambda particle and the property which caused it to live so long was dubbed "strangeness" and that name stuck to be the name of one of the quarks from which the lambda particle is constructed. The lambda is a baryon which is made up of three quarks: an up, a down and a strange quark. A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it.